Iealdith's Ritual

Maleos's Mending Ritual

For the ritual Maleos developed, the base level casting he can do completely by himself; for bigger areas or longer durations, he'll want help. Your base level casting is mending sufficient to keep a large home (AoE) in good repair for a year (duration). The range is always touch for this ritual. You can bump both the AoE and the duration for spellcraft DC penalties. For the base level for your ritual, you have to resist 1d4 hp backlash. The base cost to cast the ritual is 1,000 gp. The effect is that every morniing at dawn, the warded structure or item regains 1d8+5 effective hp (and 1 hardness, as necessary) per round. The healing lasts through until "noon" (it lasts 6 hours maximum). Unless the structure is completely destroyed (entire structure at -10 hp or lower), the magic will eventually rebuild the structure in question (unless the ritual effect expires first). This radiates strong transmutation magic.

Simple Rituals

TODO rough notes - clean up

Simple rituals are based on a single spell and simply drastically expand the scope of that spell without changing the basic effect. Instantaneous spells cannot serve as the basis for a ritual.

initial guideline is around 1,000 gp * (1 + spell lv) for cost to cast, but could be way higher or way lower depending on area of effect, range, duration, material components of the base spell, etc.

bigger the ritual, the higher the spellcraft DC to cast, the longer the casting time, etc.

Every day you're working on a ritual, you have to make a concentration check. So long as one of the casters makes the concentration check for that day, the spell progresses. A miss by all casters means a setback in casting time; a botch by one caster with misses for the others means the spell backlashes. A botch by one caster when the others are successful is a partial backlash, meaning that caster can suffer additional damage, but the spell continues. Concentration DC increases each day.

When casting a ritual, you also have to make a Will save each day to fight off backlash. Backlash is _usually_ hp damage, Int damage, Wis damage, or some combination of the three. You can accept more backlash risk to lower the DC of the ritual.

So, a lot of this is a little handwavy, I know, 'cause the ritual rules are kinda complex and a little dash of "gm's discretion on this", but the basic deal is that you research the base ritual that does a thing at a certain power level if you succeed at a Spellcraft check at a certain DC. If you succeed at all of this, you can cast the ritual. If you want the ritual to be bigger, you can make it bigger in exchange for a higher DC. You can also bring in more casters, pay more material cost, or accept more backlash risk to lower the DC.

Quadruple Colossal Resist Energy Ritual

Casts Resist Energy: (choose energy type) on a creature or object the size of the Thunderhead. It takes two spellcasters two rounds or four spellcasters one full round to complete the ritual. Pocket Forge required as a Focus for the ritual. The caster leading the ritual must have Resist Energy prepared. With a level 11 caster leading the ritual, it lasts for 1 hour 50 minutes.

Complex Rituals

TODO rough notes - clean up

Complex rituals are much more difficult than simple rituals, doing things that no single spell does.

Improvised Rituals

At one point, Maleos and Darias managed to merge a couple of previous ritual castings and magical item enchantment rituals into a very dangerous, very improvised ritual casting. Though Maleos doesn't know precisely why this even worked in the first place, there are some potential factors that might have contributed to the ritual's success. For one, veneresite was directly involved in the ritual (and argia tangentially), and those materials might have helped channel the magical energies in the desired directions. Additionally, the group was relying on help from at least two semidivine magical items and a divine construct. There is also that oddly-tinged magical aura that Maleos kept picking up in the caverns and around the Devices that may have played a role. Finally, the party itself has been given divine gifts that seem to be geared towards helping them accomplish this mission they've set out on. These factors combined may have contributed to the success of the ritual.

Magic and Flight

High enough in the air (specifically altitude above the surface rather than altitude above sea level), the magical tendrils and ley lines the mortals tap into for their spellcasting and magical abilities become tenuous and unpredictable. There are wild magic and dead magic zones above a few thousand feet AGL much like you would find in the orcs' desert. These become more prevalent and more powerful the higher you go. The Mierans warned the PCs about these issues when the PCs built Darias's airship for venturing further faster.

Conjuration vs. Summoning

Most of the basic summoning spells, like "Summon Monster X" and "Summon Nature's Ally X", are actually "conjuration" spells in the Isle of Mist world. They don't bring a being to you (summoning), they create a being from mana (conjuration). This is because the Isle of Mist universe doesn't really have the equivalent of celestials or infernals, which is what the by-the-book "summon" spells use. Conjuration creates a shell that is like an individual being and grants it limited autonomy. Summoning, on the other hand, is kind of equivalent to teleporting an actual being to you and is generally costlier and more dangerous.

Q&A

What is the most powerful spell ever cast by a mortal and what were its effects?

There is a parable on the Isle of a caster who single-handedly invoked a ritual and saved a village from a wildfire but died in the act.